Thread by @ill_Scholar

486 American Indians in a mass grave.

But the year is ~1325. Pre-European.

What happened, and what it tells us about life before contact in North America - thread🧵

Even today, some people assert that Europeans brought the concept of total war, not true

The site of the massacre was found in the 1950s, reported on in 1978 by the SD Archaeological Society

The Famous Wounded Knee, by comparison, was *only 150-300 people

While we don’t know who, or exactly when, the attack occurred

We know that the village was preparing expanded defenses in the form of a ditch, expecting an attack

The village abutted a cliff, providing an easier line of defense but also no possible escape

The defenses were unfinished

The attack overwhelmed the entire village, the dead mutilated

Skulls cracked, decapitation, scalping, dismemberment, and burning is evident on the analyzed skeletons

Archaeologists estimate the dead at 486 based on 486 right temporal bones

Who buried the bodies is unknown, possibly the attackers, but also possible it was survivors, a related group, and in part natural processes

The bones also display evidence of scavenging animals picking them apart

Today, the related Arikara live nearby, site of the village was never reoccupied

The existence of total war pre-European contact does not excuse massacres by Spanish, English, American, etc.

But it does provide context for what life was like before Europeans

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